Raven
by QueenSkellington
Summary: A small look into what Dan Phantom had been feeling to lead him to turning into the Dan Phantom we know.


I was watching _The Ultimate Enemy _when it got to when Vlad told Danny about his future and I thought it would be a really emotional time so I thought I would write about it. ~ QueenSkellington

The sunlight filled the large room quickly as if it were water flooding in. The sun slowly continued rising and I continued staring. My eyes burned with the need to blink and I slowly did so. I continued staring, wondering how the sun could still rise on today. It just didn't seem possible that the days, hours, minutes and seconds could move on after the events of yesterday. I could still smell the fire and spices of the sauce as my family and friends had died, could still feel the disbelief at what I'd seen.

And I still had to feel the pain, the guilt that I could've avoided. Well, maybe Sam hadn't been all that wrong about the whole vegetarian thing, Nasty Burger served meat flavored with there stupid sauce, and if they hadn't my friends and family would still be alive. There was a knock on the door and I looked away from the window and answered,

"Yes?" A woman walked in, one of Vlad's maids, carrying a tray with a silver cover over it.

"Breakfast." She stated, setting down the tray and promptly leaving. I stared at the tray disinterestedly.

"Starving yourself isn't going to make anything better, Daniel." Vlad said, standing in the doorway. I didn't look up. Amazing, my own name hurt when I heard it, all the times _they'd_ said it flashed through my head in one quick painful burst. I sighed still staring at the dish. Vlad sighed, making his way across the room, he took a seat across from me and I still didn't look up.

"All those times you called me a 'Fruit Loop' or 'Crazy' do you see now how loneliness can drive a person to such extremes?" Vlad said and I risked looking at him for one short second. My eyes must have deceived me because Vlad couldn't actually be being…. sincere? He lifted the cover of the tray revealing a five star breakfast but I just didn't feel hungry.

I grimaced and sighed, standing up, a few bones popped from sitting in the same position all night just staring at the stars. My long night showed, dark circles were painted under my eyes, giving the electric blue a dark edge. And for once I _did _understand Vlad, how 22 years of this pain at loosing someone could drive you to the levels of evil that Vlad was. Of course his had to be three times worse, he'd lost mom to Dad so she was still alive and had rejected him.

I looked into the full length mirror next to the door, but my mind must have been so delusional with lack of sleep, guilt and hunger that I must be seeing things. I stared into the mirror at the reflection. Green eyes, black jumpsuit with pieces of white, snow white hair, and a powerful stance. The delusional reflection of my ghost self soon faded back to my black haired reflection.

"Daniel? Something wrong?" Vlad asked looking over at me. I realized I was holding my breath and let it go, blue mist swirling out of my mouth indicating Vlad was near. I looked back at my reflection and changed to my ghost self in reality. The icy feeling of turning into my ghost form swam over my skin and the iciness seemed to reach into my chest and freeze over the blade of guilt, completely numbing the cutting guilt and pain.

An idea came into me then. If I was pure ghost…. Could the pain go away? Permanently? Vlad stood, interrupting my thoughts. I watched him go and looked back into the mirror, green eyes staring back at me. I reached forward and touched the glass of the mirror, changing just my head back to its black haired counterpart. I winced at the black hair and blue eyes of my Dad. I would consider this option, but ripping out my humanity? The relief would be intense but I frowned at the thought of being full ghost. I'd been a Fenton so much longer than a Phantom. Although I was the only Fenton left, what was the point of staying a Fenton when all I would get was pity looks and 'How are you holding up?'

I hated that question, hated how people would ask that and say, "I know how you feel." They knew _nothing _of how I was feeling, what I was going through. They didn't know the pain of loosing a family and all of your friends, didn't know the isolation of only _one _person knowing my deepest secret, and he was my worst enemy.

I changed my head back to the Phantom form. I removed my hand from the mirror walking back over to the bed which the tray was placed on. I sat down unusually graceful. I stared at the plate, bacon, eggs, toast, jam, orange juice, coffee? Damn, how much did he think I needed? And I didn't drink coffee; I'd never even tried it. The nagging exhaustion cried out for the coffee though so I grabbed it and took half the cup down in one gulp. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I could get used to the stuff.

I frowned at the bacon, pushing it aside. A large white cat, I'd heard Vlad call it Maddie *shudder*, trotted in at the smell of bacon. I shrugged and threw it to her, she devoured it hungrily purring. I looked down at the tray again, no hunger rattling in my stomach. I took the cup of coffee and walked over to the large window. I stared out the window at the landscape which wasn't much. There were a few small mountains in the distance but not much else.

I opened the window and cool air flowed in, blowing my still white hair back. As I leaned out the window I heard something, a flapping noise. Like a flag snapping in harsh winds or the whipping of a wet towel. I looked from side to side to see a raven land on the window ledge. The bird squawked quietly, not being annoying but looked… inquisitive? Odd. I looked at it for a minute and moved my hand over, knowing that it was stupid and it would probably fly off but something about it just made me think of Sam.

"Hey." I said quietly, holding a hand out to the bird of prey. It squawked a quiet response and jumped onto my wrist. I blinked, surprised. It looked at me as if expecting me to start up a conversation.

"Uh… hi. Are-are you like a trained bird or something?" I asked as it settled on my arm. It made a quiet click noise in its throat and I stared at the beautiful black bird and felt a pang in my chest, just a small pang because I was still in my Phantom form. No wonder Sam had loved these birds, they were so smart, and beautiful.

"I guess you'll have to do." I said, sitting down on a chair set by the window.

"What do you think about me taking my human half out and becoming full ghost?" I asked the bird. It simply squawked and jumped off my wrist, settling on the windowsill. I sighed and lie down onto the ground,

"Oh Sam, I could really use your opinion right now." I said to the ceiling, "Any suggestions?" The bird jumped down from the windowsill to the ground of the room. It pecked at a strand of hair on my head in a curious manner.

"I… am…. turning into….a Fruit…Loop." I said in a broken manner.

---x---

I stood in the doorway of Vlad's living room. I let out a breath and it echoed in the large room. Vlad sat on a large chair, reading a book that was thicker than my head. He pretended not to notice my presence but after being in his mansion for three weeks, I knew him pretty well. And I knew his tells. His right ring finger would twitch when he would lie, his brow would twitch when he would try to ignore someone. And his brow had just twitched; apparently I was _really _good at finding a persons tells when I sat down and thought of it hard enough.

Vlad sighed and closed the book.

"Yes, Daniel?" he asked, looking at me curiously. I frowned, he still wouldn't call me Danny but that wasn't important now.

"I've been thinking about something for a few weeks." I said, sitting down into one of the plush chairs.

"Oh?" Vlad asked suspiciously. I nodded and continued,

"I've been thinking… if you took the human out of me, would the guilt go away?" I asked quickly, trying to get the question over with. His eyebrows shot up on his forehead.

"Take out your humanity? I guess it would… perhaps." Vlad said cautiously, "What gave you this idea?" I took in a breath and said,

"I've noticed that when I go ghost that the guilt dulls and it doesn't really… hurt anymore." I muttered the last part, still uncomfortable with sharing any feelings with Vlad. He stood and for a moment I was scared he was just going to walk out.

"I suppose… theoretically, that if you remove the human half of the equation it would remove any guilt and pain." Vlad murmured staring at the bookshelf, "The question is… how to do it?" for once I was glad to have someone around who didn't have an exact conscience and wouldn't mind doing this procedure. He mumbled something to himself about 'Complications'.

"I suppose the Fenton gloves would work if I modified them to take the ghost of a person. I need to do some schematics." Vlad said, mostly to himself, grabbing some books from the shelves.

I was pretty sure about this. It had only been three weeks and this guilt was _killing _me. I was getting the humanity ripped out of me. Period.

----x---

Strength. Power. Raw Power. That's all I felt. My mind processed that Vlad stood in front of me and had his hands in my chest, the blades on the fingers of the modified Fenton gloves digging deep into me. Rage. Anger. I glared at him, gripping his upper arms and throwing him out of my chest. He grunted as he slammed into a wall and I smiled darkly. The insensible rage boiled in me and I gripped my hands into tight fists, an aura of green surrounding them.

My chest still burned from the sting the gloves had delivered and I thought, _hey, why not rip the ghost out of you? Let's see how you like it!_ I didn't know why I was so angry. He'd done what I'd asked, but I just couldn't see it that way. He had to pay for even daring to touch me! I slipped on the heavy metal gloves and picked up his frightened form. Before ripping his two halves apart I whispered two words,

"Thank you." And ripped his halves apart. His two halves hit opposite walls, the human body still conscious while the ghost half was drowsy from the unexpected separation. An evil little idea seeped into my mind. I couldn't let so much power go to waste could I? So I decided to take advantage of the situation. I went intangible and the gloves slipped off. I shot towards the dazed ghost and dove inside him. Possessing him. I merged myself within his system, taking control of him in a way I never knew I could. Another thing I didn't expect, the pain. I opened my eyes but immediately snapped them shut at the pain.

This pain was so much worse than _anything _I'd ever experienced. Burning and freezing at the same time. My eyes snapped open and I put my hands to the sides of my head and screamed out. So much pain in such a small amount of time. As suddenly as it had begun it stopped a freezing cold settling over me. I opened my eyes, my breathing slightly rushed.

My eyes widened at the clarity. The perfection, of everything. Everything was in perfect clarity; all of it looked so amazing… like I'd been blind before this. I looked down at the shaking Vlad and my human self, who was slowly waking up. Well, we couldn't have my human selfrunning around now could we? Well only one way to fix that. Kill him.

----x----  
The gray streets smelled of sulfur. Burn marks and bullet holes marked the streets violently. I smiled darkly, perfect.

"-Impossible! This is a trick! You can't be alive!" I heard a familiar voice shout, Valerie. Some curiosity bubbled up and I couldn't resist, I moved over into a gap between two buildings and looked at the group. _NO. _I thought,

"No." I whispered, my mind rejecting the information it was given. Sam, Tucker and… my past self. I hadn't seen Sam and Tuckers faces in so long I was shocked for a moment.

"Wait. Not alive? That's our future? I'm definitely not taking the CAT!" Tucker said disbelievingly. I sighed, I'd missed Tuckers comic relief but they couldn't be here, they should be in the past… about to die.

"The CAT… that's the last time I saw you alive." Valerie whispered, but thanks to my acute senses I caught it.

"The explosion at the Nasty Burger, you, Tucker, Danny's family… and it was all your fault!" Valerie yelled, aiming a large gun at my past self sitting helplessly in a ghost net. If I still had the ability to feel guilt or emotional pain, I would have. But I couldn't, so now for my forte… violence. I shot a ray of ectoplasmic blast at her, blowing her aside.

"Actually, that was me." I growled in a dark voice, "And you, eventually." I added looking down at my old self, so weak, so helpless sitting in a glowing ghost net. The perfect target.


End file.
